Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Recapping, we already know that I have nine hours of standard-definition source video from our vacation to the Amazon in 1999. We also know that the raw material is intensely boring. So boring, in fact, that my typical technique ("Divide into short manageable independent vignette stories") probably won't work. But my friends still want to see video of the Amazon.

I reviewed all nine hours and marked about fifteen minutes that might be worthy of an "Amazon Adventure Highlight Reel". But vacation video editing is a hobby, not an obligation. I want to have fun while I edit.
Luckily, my massive brain seized upon an idea: THIS CAN BE A FICTION.

I decided to create a horror story.

Amazon adventurers didn't realize they would be part of my "Horror Story"

YouTube has plenty of movie trailers, including some notable B-movies (also C- and D-movies) that could have taken place in the Amazon region. I gathered trailers from notable films like: Anaconda; Forbidden World; Black Water; Swamp Thing & The Return of Swamp Thing; The Scorpion King; Tarantula; The Creature From The Black Lagoon; Piranha & Mega Piranha; The Return of Swamp Thing, and even an Internet meme The OMG Cat.
(* Aren't these copyrighted? See below.)

Short clips from each trailer and my vacation footage we're marked within Final Cut Pro X, than placed it all into a new project's timeline. Watching it over and over again, I began to rearrange, piecing together the beginnings of a storyboard. This led to writing and recording a narration that I placed under the timeline. Now I could trim the story to match my narration.

The project was taking shape -- perhaps the most ridiculous story ever told. I couldn't laughing as I edited; "This is for sure the stupidest movie I've ever made." Nevertheless, it has won a few awards!

I named my masterpiece Monsters of the Amazon. You'll get to see it in my next blog post.

I do not encourage improper use of copyrighted material. I often use Royalty-Free music with license that I purchased from SmartSound. Copyright also applies to still and moving images. I extracted a few seconds of video from many different movie trailers for this production. They were all freely available on YouTube, in most cases they were placed there as advertising for the movies themselves. In at least one case (The Creature From The Black Lagoon) the entire movie is now in public domain.Does my production meet the guidelines for "Fair Use"? I'll offer these arguments and let you make your own decision: I used only video from the trailers, not from the movies themselves; I am not making a profit from this; the professionally-made movies are given credit at the end of my video; and the blog is for educational purposes.